


Saturday Night At The Movies

by aussiebee



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angry Stiles Stilinski, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Derek Hale Takes Care of Stiles Stilinski, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Movie Night, Nogitsune Trauma, Post-Nogitsune Stiles Stilinski, Slow Build Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski is Not Okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 01:28:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15207809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aussiebee/pseuds/aussiebee
Summary: After running into Stiles at the late night movies, Derek realises just how badly Stiles is handling the post-nogitsune fallout. He knows the feeling.





	Saturday Night At The Movies

**Author's Note:**

> References to Allison dying, and some minor/general talk about domestic violence (in an oblique fashion)-- these opinions are mine and come from personal experience, but if this is triggering for you maybe give this one a miss.

He was already tired by the time he got to the cinema, but  _ tired _ and  _ sleepy _ were two sides of the same coin, and Stiles knew only too well that you could be the one without the other. He stood out in the lobby, glancing up to confirm the spelling of one of the foreign movies with a one a.m. start time as he googled it to see what it was about. He had just settled on  _ L’Atalante _ and turned in the direction of the ticket counter when he felt a presence behind himself and spun, flinching, as he lashed out with a closed fist.

He wasn’t sure who was more surprised at the fact that he landed the punch: him, or Derek, who stood with a palm pressed to his chin and a look of stunned, wide-eyed surprise.

“What the fuck?” Stiles exclaimed, startled. 

“Stiles? What are you doing here?”

His heart still thundering from the thick, cloying fear that had suffused him at sensing  _ something _ behind him, Stiles looked incredulously around them at the very obvious setting they were standing in.

Derek frowned as the sting of contact faded. “What are you doing here, alone, after midnight, on a Saturday night? Does your dad know you’re here?”

Stiles scowled. “Thanks for your concern, dude, but  _ yes _ , Dad knows I’m here.” He seemed content to ignore the rest of Derek’s questions in favour of shifting his weight awkwardly and trying to pretend that his shoulders weren’t actually as tight as the stiff line of them indicated.

Derek just waited, but instead of cracking and beginning to ramble like he once would have, Stiles shrugged and moved away, purchasing his ticket without looking back at Derek. After a moment's hesitation Derek followed, maintaining a respectful distance, and purchased a ticket of his own. He was surprised when Stiles skipped the concession bar and headed straight into the theatre, but bought his own bag of Skittles and followed Stiles down the hall.

Of course they ended up in the same cinema, watching the same movie, and it was just the two of them and an older guy who was already asleep. Derek focussed his hearing to make sure the guy actually  _ was _ just sleeping, then settled in a row towards the back, just behind and to the right of Stiles.

The kid looked worse than the unconscious man in the second row, Derek thought. Pale, wan, and with deep, purple circles beneath his eyes. After everything that had happened with the nogitsune, though, that was probably to be expected. But the vitality that Derek had always found so synonymous with Stiles, the life and the energy just seemed to be gone, like all the joy had been sucked from him at the same time the nogitsune had been expelled.

Watching closely and feeling like a creeper for doing so, Derek frowned at the way Stiles slumped down in his seat, defeated, then scolded at himself for his degree of concern. He was a teenage boy dealing with some crazy supernatural shit-- of course he was going to have down periods, even someone as vaguely manic as Stiles was capable of being.

Still, Derek kept a close eye on him, through the movie and then after as they left the cinema together, Stiles with his shoulders hunched forward and his hands shoved deep into his pockets as though warding off a chill. They parted with small nods of acknowledgement and Derek watched thoughtfully as Stiles moved off towards the Jeep, climbed in and pulled out of the parking lot without looking back.

 

*

 

The following Saturday was the same, but this time with  _ Yojimbo  _ screening at one a.m. Derek arrived before Stiles and wasn’t truly expecting to see him again until there he was, frowning at Derek across the lobby as though unsure if Derek was following him around on purpose. Stiles looked worse than the previous week, Derek thought, under-eye circles deeper and hair in disarray as he approached.

“Derek,” Stiles said, his tone clearly expressing his displeasure.

“Stiles,” Derek replied, refusing to engage.

“Sudden passion for foreign films?”

“Not sudden,” Derek shrugged. “I come most weekends.”

“How have I never seen you?” Stiles wondered aloud as Derek purchased his ticket.

“Sometimes I’m here on Sunday, sometimes the movie I want to see starts early.”

Stiles paid for his ticket and they wandered to the concession stand together, Stiles chewing absently on his hoodie string. They ordered from the same bored kid who had given them their tickets and was watching them curiously, and then entered the theatre, Stiles managing a twist of his mouth that couldn’t remotely be considered a smile before he headed to the middle of the seating and settled in, head resting in his hand as he leaned on the arm rest.

Derek sat in the back again and again they shared  _ the nod _ as they left after the movie was done. And, once again, Stiles didn’t look back as he drove away.

 

*

 

The next few weeks followed the same pattern.  _ La Jeteé, Pather Panchali, Hiroshima Mon Amor, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Céline and Julie Go Boating _ and  _ Breathless  _ came and went, and with it Derek and Stiles. They shared few words before the movie and never any after, but they had begun to sit together in the middle back of the theatre, not bothering to keep an empty seat between them.

It wasn’t what Derek would have called a friendship, but it had become something akin to companionship, this shared experience of theirs. Derek had briefly toyed with the idea of spending time with Stiles outside of the late-night movies, but was reluctant to disrupt the status quo they had established.

Then one night, in the middle of winter and cold enough that even Derek could feel it, they showed up to watch Ingmar Bergman’s  _ Persona _ . They settled in and the movie began, the black and white opening scenes vaguely familiar to Derek in the way that he knew meant he had seen the movie before. He idly searched back through his memory as the movie progressed, trying to resurrect the memory of having seen it, but it wasn’t until the faces of the two actresses on stage were combined into one and Stiles went still in the seat beside him that Derek remembered. He hesitated, unsure if he should speak, if he should warn Stiles, but Stiles’ eyes remained glued to the screen and he had begun to lean a little forward in his seat instead of slumping back like he had at the beginning of the film.

As the film continued, Derek began to sense a rising miasma of unease and then distress surrounding Stiles. Finally, as the character of Elizabeth took Alma’s hand and used it to stroke the face of Alma’s husband, the two women becoming confused as a potential single entity, Derek became aware of the thin, wounded noise Stiles had begun to make, his entire body shuddering even as he seemed incapable of looking away.

Unable to sit and listen to that level of distress, Derek stood and grabbed the shoulder of Stiles’ hoodie, pulling him to his feet and leading him from the theatre, across the lobby and out into the parking lot until Stiles’ breath began to catch in his throat like he was choking on glass. Derek wordlessly pulled Stiles close once they were between the Camaro and the Jeep and hugged him tightly, keeping one hand on the back of Stiles’ head and pressing his face against Derek’s throat, the other smoothing up and down Stiles’ back in long, rhythmic passes.

It was only from having Stiles pressed close against him like that that caused Derek to realise how thin he had become, the knobs of his vertebrae and the wings of his scapula sharp protuberances that Derek could feel even through the layers that Stiles had bundled himself in. His concern ratcheted up a notch when Stiles just returned the embrace and held on so tightly that it bordered on uncomfortable, his body shaking and his heart racing as though he had been running for his life.

There was no one else around at that point, but Derek didn’t want to chance one of Stiles’ father’s deputies driving past and seeing them, or the man himself catching them in what could foreseeably be considered a compromising situation in the parking lot of the 24-Hour CinePlex, so he shifted around Stiles a little until he could reach into the front pocket of his hoodie and pull out the keys to the Jeep, keeping one arm wrapped securely around Stiles as he unlocked the blue vehicle and helped Stiles climb into the passenger seat, reaching across to grab the seat belt and buckle Stiles in securely before jogging around getting into the driver’s side and starting the ignition to reverse out and begin heading towards the loft.

The whole way, even though it was a little awkward, Derek kept a hand on Stiles between gear shifts, resting on his shoulder, his thigh, pressed against his chest. Stiles was still worryingly silent and stared unseeingly out the windshield, but he’d stopped making the traumatised sounds and the trembling of his body had subsided to just his hands, so Derek considered it essential and didn’t break contact until he was parked and climbing out of the Jeep.

Stiles managed to unbuckle himself and half-fall from the door when Derek opened it, but he slotted himself right back against Derek’s side and relaxed somewhat when Derek wrapped an arm around his shoulders and gripped his shoulder as they walked into the apartment building together.

They travelled up to the loft in silence, and once they were inside Derek led Stiles up the stairs to the bathroom, turning the shower on to let the water run hot. Stiles just stood in the middle of the room, arms hanging limp and still by his sides as he watched Derek move around the small tiled space with incurious detachment. He didn’t so much as protest when Derek unzipped his hoodie and carefully removed it and the plaid beneath it, but he complied unresistingly when Derek said ‘up’ into the quiet of the shared space and tugged both the tee and the henley beneath it he recognised as being one he’d thought lost up and over Stiles’ head. He knelt and unlaced the battered black Chucks, slipping them and the socks off in sequence before standing and resting his hands on Stiles’ painfully thin and bare shoulders, making sure there was awareness in those terrified eyes before speaking.

“Finish getting undressed and get in, okay?” he said softly. “You’ll feel better once you’re warm.” Stiles nodded once, sharply, his eyes flicking between Derek and the doorway before shaking fingers reached for his belt. “I’ll leave the door open.”

It shouldn’t have, but the look of overwhelming gratitude that suffused Stiles’ features felt like a punch in the chest to Derek and he left, fetching a change of clothes and a towel and returning to the bathroom to leave them on the counter, keeping his eyes resolutely on the floor until he left again.

Going back downstairs, Derek hesitated in front of the windows, unsure where to go from there. He eventually settled on reheating some of the beef cheek ragu he’d made the day before to try and get some food into Stiles, and set up the television to play a Disney movie he found on Netflix. It wasn’t long before Stiles shut of the shower, dried and changed before coming hesitantly down the stairs, one arm wrapped tightly around his middle.

“Sit,” Derek said as Stiles cross to the kitchen hesitantly, as though unsure of his welcome. When he did as told, Derek set a bowl of food in front of him and poured the last of the red wine he’d used to make it into a glass beside it. It wasn’t the best he’d ever tasted, probably couldn’t even be considered good, but it was decent enough, and all he had besides, and Derek thought that Stiles could probably use it.

Tucking into a bowl of his own, Derek encouraged Stiles by leading by example, and was pleased when he eventually began to eat, slow and methodical and taking small sips of wine in between mouthfuls.

“‘S good,” Stiles murmured when he was about halfway through. “You make it?”

Derek shrugged, his mouth full. “Yeah,” he said eventually. “Good for cold weather.”

“This wine, though…”

Derek shrugged again. “Good for cold weather.”

That elicited the tiniest of curls at the corner of Stiles’ remarkably mobile lips, but Derek still considered it a win.

It took a while, but Stiles finished almost everything Derek had served him, leaning back in his seat to press wide palms against his belly, eyes somnolent and body more relaxed than Derek had seen it in weeks. He stood and gathered their dishes up, instructing Stiles to go and start the movie as he washed up, frowning when it looked like he was going to protest. He heard the soft huff of dry almost-laughter when Stiles found  _ The Emperor’s New Groove _ queued up and ready to go, and he listened in fascination as Stiles started the movie, shifted around on the bed to get comfortable, and then promptly fell asleep before Derek was even done.

As he dried his hands on the towel hung over the handle of the oven, Derek leaned against the pantry and watched the flickering light from the tv illuminate the living area and Stiles, who was asleep on the bed with his face turned away from Derek. Sighing a little, Derek just made his way to the bathroom to wash up for the night, returning to carefully carry the armchair over to the side of the bed before snagging a pillow, propping his feet up on the end of the bed and finally managing to fall asleep to the horrifyingly amusing soundtrack of David Spade and John Goodman.

 

*

 

When Derek woke up, Stiles was gone. He tried not to think too hard about what it meant that Stiles could be conscious around him in his personal space without disturbing his sleep.

He was not particularly successful.

 

*

 

It took two weeks of Stiles-less movie nights at the CinePlex before Derek got concerned enough to show up at the Stilinski’s door on Saturday night with a bag from Safeway filled with the classic movies he had begun to buy in order to recreate his family’s collection. The look of surprise on Stiles’ face was the first truly genuine expression aside from fear that Derek had seen in months, and it made something twist uncomfortably in his gut.

“I have  _ Rashomon, _ Milk Duds and Twizzlers,” he said after an awkward beat of silence, thrusting the bag at Stiles, taking advantage of him accepting it in bewildered confusion to stalk into the house and make himself at home on the couch where there was a baseball rerun playing on the tv.

“Come in, why don’t you?” Stiles muttered to himself from the hall, but he closed and locked the door and returned to the living room, and Derek. “Can I get you a drink?” he asked sarcastically.

“I’m fine for now, thank you,” Derek returned with a grimacing faux-smile, ignoring the confusion radiating off Stiles as he dropped the bag onto the coffee table and dropped down onto the couch beside Derek, glaring at him as though daring him to protest. Derek said nothing, knowing full well that he had taken Stiles’ spot.

They watched the tv in mutual silence, the Cardinals beating the Angels eight to four and Stiles radiating nervous energy at his side the entire time. When the game ended and the post-game commentary-slash-breakdown began, Stiles simply got to his feet, took the top movie from the bag and set it to play in the DVD player, fetching two cans of soft drink from the kitchen and returning to the couch, close enough for their bodies to touch, a fact neither of them acknowledged.

The rest of night passed quickly, neither of them saying much, and after the movie was done and Stiles looked sufficiently sleepy, Derek took his leave, ‘accidentally’ forgetting about the movies still sitting on the coffee table.

 

*

 

Another three weeks like that, and another three movies. Then, just before midnight with gentle rain an unrelenting susurration against the windows, Derek was getting changed to head out to the Stilinski place when a cautious knock sounded at his door. Pulling on a navy blue pullover, he opened the door and felt his eyebrows shoot up in surprise at finding Stiles standing there, hair a little flat with rain. They just stood for a long moment, wordless and staring, until Stiles shifted awkwardly.

“Dad’s not working tonight,” he said.

Oh. “Come on,” Derek told him, stepping aside and pulling the door closed behind Stiles when he entered the loft.

They settled in to watch  _ Bicycle Thieves,  _ but Stiles was unusually restless, in a way that it took Derek a full half-hour to realise seemed so familiar because it reminded him of Stiles  _ before. _

“What’s wrong?” he asked, turning to look at Stiles who jerked his eyes away from where they had been staring at Derek’s bed with something akin to guilt.

“Nothing,” Stiles snapped, relenting after a moment when Derek just continued to watch him without expression. “Nothing,” he repeated, huffing a soft sigh. “Just tired.”

Derek turned and looked pointedly at his bed, then back at Stiles. “Oh look,” he said slowly and obviously. “A conveniently-located bed.”

Stiles’ eyes narrowed. “I’m not going to take over your bed just because I’m tired,” he said eventually. “I should just go--”

“Your father would kill me if you crashed your ridiculous vehicle because you were driving tired,” Derek said dismissively, turning his attention back to the movie. “Get into bed, Stiles.”

For the first time in memory, Stiles did as he was told, and was fast asleep in a handful of minutes. Derek finished the movie and spent a few moments tidying up before getting ready for bed and setting up in the same chair as he’d slept in before.

The last thing he could remember as he tried to keep his eyes open against the relentless caress of sleep was Stiles’ pale face turned towards him, raindrops on the window panes casting shadowy tears against his cheeks that slid down over long, slender hands.

 

*

 

Then  _ that _ became a thing, Stiles sleeping wherever Derek was. He wasn’t stupid; he knew full well that Stiles slept better whenever he was around, or whenever he was in Derek’s space. That was what facilitated the awkward exchange about six months into the movie night habit they had created when Derek took Stiles’ keys from him as he was getting ready to leave one night and began threading a new one on, Batman-themed from a last-minute run through Home Depot.

“Not that I don’t appreciate the aesthetic,” Stiles frowned, “but what is that?”

“It’s a key,” Derek told him, continuing as Stiles began to roll his eyes. “It’s for here. For when I’m not around and you want to come by. Sleep. Whatever.”

Stiles narrowed his eyes, calculating and weighty. “You’ve giving me a key.”

It wasn’t a question, but Derek answered it all the same. “Yeah.”

“To your place.”

“Yes.”

“So I can be here sometimes. When you’re not.”

“Yes, Stiles.” The thoughtful look that settled over Stiles’ face was one Derek was familiar with, his I’m-on-the-verge-of-figuring-it-out expression, and that  _ always  _ made Derek nervous.

But Stiles just nodded once, short and with a degree of embarrassment, and that was end of that discussion.

 

*

 

Stiles came around a lot. Surprisingly, Derek didn’t see him all that often, whether by coincidence or Stiles-led design, but the scent of him lingered in the hours after he left. Derek was trying not to look too hard at why it disappointed him so much whenever he came home to have just missed Stiles, yet another endeavour he was disturbingly unsuccessful in. But their standing Saturday night arrangement continued.

About two weeks after Derek had given Stiles loft-sleeping rights, they were watching  _ Mystery Men. _ Stiles was appalled that he had never seen it, and he was intently watching the superhero training camp scene as Derek returned to the living area with a massive plate of nachos when Stiles laughed. Not the soft, huffed almost-laughter that had seemed to be all he could muster, but a real, loud, rough and surprised laugh that startled Derek so badly he almost dropped the plate. Managing to save it and deposit it on the coffee table, Derek took his usual seat next to Stiles, their shoulders pressed together for Derek to feel them shake with laughter that just continued.

And continued. And continued, until Derek realised suddenly that Stiles was gasping for breath, and not in a pleasant way. He reached for Stiles at the same time that Stiles turned to him, tears streaming down his face and a devastated emotion haunting his enormous dark eyes, and Derek felt his heart break a little. Without hesitation he hauled Stiles in close, allowing him to hide his face against Derek’s throat the way he had the night they’d left the cinema together. Derek just held him tightly, shifting to make room as Stiles all-but climbed into his lap, sobbing so hard his entire body was almost convulsing with the force of it.

That sat there like that, lit by the flickering light from the television, for the rest of the movie. Even when the horrendous sobbing finally tapered off the tears didn’t, and the misery radiating off Stiles was almost more than Derek could bear. He was familiar with grief and guilt like this and wouldn’t have wished it on anyone, least of all Stiles, but he was at a loss as to how to deal with it, how best to offer comfort.

“Come on,” he murmured, helping Stiles to his feet and leading him to the bed, gently manhandling him until he was lying down, curled around Derek’s pillow, the tears on his face shiny in the meagre light. “I’ll be right back,” he promised, then went to the kitchen to grab the things he needed.

“Here,” Derek said as he returned, sitting on the edge of the bed and angling the bottle of water with the straw in it so Stiles could drink deeply. When he was done and two thirds of the water was gone, Derek cupped Stiles’ face in one hand and softly wiped his face down with a clean and damp kitchen towel, soothing the swollen skin around his eyes and removing the tears that had coursed down his face and throat. His actions were gentle, infinitely careful with the fragile and impossibly valuable young man who had somehow deemed Derek worthy of his trust and Derek felt humbled to the very core of his being. He produced the rumbling reassurance in his chest he remembered his own father comforting him with as a child, but felt like crying himself when it just prompted a fresh bout of tears.  _ “Don’t,” _ Derek pleaded, voice rough and feeling helpless and broken.  _ “Please, _ Stiles, don’t cry. Tell me what you need.”

Stiles just closed his eyes and turned away from Derek, trying to break the contact between them, but Derek was having none of it. He tossed the towel onto the bedside table, grabbed a box of tissues and climbed into bed beside Stiles, gripping his shoulder firmly to roll him back onto his back and then over again so he was pressed to Derek’s front and engulfed within the protective circle of his arms. The sobs began anew, and Derek felt frantic, panic clawing at his throat at his inability to offer the comfort that Stiles so obviously needed. The alpha in him  _ needed  _ to provide succour,  _ yearned  _ to do anything, everything his packmate needed to help him be better, unbroken, whole.

More than that,  _ Derek _ needed to help  _ Stiles. _ The fact that he was even in the midst of such a soul-destroying crisis was primarily thanks to Derek dragging him into the supernatural shitshow that was his life, and his inability to make it right ate away at him, enraged and devastated him. But if this was all he could offer, this closeness, physical comfort, the reminder that no matter what he wasn’t alone? Well, that Derek  _ could  _ do. He reached down and curled his hand around Stiles’ thigh, dragging it up to slot between his own as he shifted a little more onto his back so Stiles was pressed more completely against him, and so Derek could reach more of him to touch and soothe.

Stiles didn’t protest, silently accepting the touch and Derek’s efforts, and they lay like that for hours, until the light in the loft turned into a muted blue with the gradual dawning of the day and Stiles finally dropped into sleep like a stone in a pond, Derek emotionally wrung out and following behind just a moment later.

 

*

 

For the first time since they’d begun whatever it was their movie nights had turned into, Derek didn’t wake up alone.

 

*

 

Derek gave Stiles five days of hiding away from him before he decided enough was enough. He drove to the Stilinski house and hammered on the door, the aroma from the takeout bag he carried curling up to fill the air with mouthwatering fragrance. When there was no answer-- in spite of the Jeep parked in the drive and the elevated heart rate beating somewhere upstairs, Derek stepped back off the porch so he could see the entire front of the house and shout loud enough to be heard.

“So help me, Stiles, if you don’t open this door I swear to god I’ll take this fried Chicken from  _ Mama Jo’s _ to the station and let your dad have it for dinner.” He stepped back onto the porch when he heard heavy footsteps reluctantly descend the stairs. “You look like hell,” Derek frowned when Stiles opened the door, not waiting to be invited in as he brushed past Stiles to set up in the dining room. “Go and have a shower, then come down and eat.”

“What are you doing here?” Stiles asked, and he sounded so defeated that Derek wanted to growl. “Go home, Derek; I’m too broken to fix.”

“You’re too smart to be this defeatist,” Derek corrected, managing to keep his frustration tamped down as he began laying the food out on the table. “Shower. Go.”

Stiles watched him for a long moment before muttering something under his breath and stomping back upstairs with considerably more energy than he’d come down with. Derek kept half an ear on what Stiles was doing as he grabbed glasses for the table and poured them each glasses of juice. When he heard the water shut off he served the fried chicken, curly fries, grilled corn and Southern-style slaw onto their plates and sat down to wait.

When Stiles returned he was dressed in another of Derek’s henleys and clean sweatpants, his hair wet and plastered against his forehead. Derek idly noted that it was getting long again since Stiles had buzzed it after the nogitsune had been captured. “I like your hair like this,” he said into the silence as he pushed Stiles plate in front of him. “Suits you.”

Stiles dropped his fork, the abrasive twanging of it striking the edge of his plate making Derek wince as the sound assaulted his ears. “What is this, Derek?” he demanded. “What do you want from me?”

“Nothing,” Derek said, eating a curly fry.

“Then why are you here? Why are you doing this? Why aren’t you off with your pack?”

“You  _ are _ my pack,” Derek told him, his irritation surging. “And I don’t want anything from you, I just want to  _ help _ you, okay? Is that really such a foreign concept for you to grasp? Because it shouldn’t be; god knows you’ve sacrificed everything of yourself to help everyone else.”

Stiles’ mouth dropped open and he glared at Derek. “Are you… are you blaming me?”

Shrugging with concerted casualness, Derek took a drink from his glass. “Of course not. You’re doing a pretty great job of it all on your own; what would I have to contribute that’s new?”

“Fuck you,” Stiles spat. “You have no idea, Derek,  _ no idea, _ okay?”

“Of course I don’t,” Derek said instantly, his own voice rising to match Stiles’, “because you won’t  _ tell _ me anything.”

“What do you want to hear, huh?” Stiles snarled, pressing his trembling hands flat to the table, the muscles in his shoulders bunching with tension. He smelled like fear. “You want to hear about the guilt? About how I sometimes find myself daydreaming about killing Allison and smiling because I remember  _ liking it? _ About how Lydia won’t return any of my calls, and Scott won’t look me in the fucking eyes, let alone be in the same room alone with me? About how my own god damn father is afraid of me?” His voice wobbled, cracked. “Would that make you feel better about your failure to fix me? I’m so broken I may as well be ground to dust, Derek.  _ You can’t fucking fix this.” _

“You think you have a monopoly on grief?” Derek roared back, hating the self-pity Stiles was wallowing in because he recognised it so well. “Your dad is afraid  _ for _ you, you idiot-- you’re so removed from yourself you’re practically disassociating, and I get why, okay, I do. Scott and Lydia are grieving too, and neither of them want to add to your burden by forcing you to witness them doing it. And at least you have the admittedly-fucked up benefit of knowing that you weren’t actually the one who killed Allison; I have to live with knowing that I killed my entire family. I have to live with that every day. I have to deal with you and the rest of the pack in my face every day trying to fix me too, because that’s what pack  _ does, _ Stiles, and you know that almost better than the rest of them.

“You are loved so deeply and so dearly, and by so many people that you don’t have the luxury of trying to run us all off because you don’t think you’re worthy of that love, or that forgiveness, irrespective of the fact that you have nothing to be guilty  _ of. _ Did it ever occur to you that part of the healing the rest of us needs it so see you healed too? Are you deliberately being selfish, or are you just too deep in your own head to see how your actions are affecting the rest of us?”

“I am not responsible for anyone else’s happiness,” Stiles snapped.

“Then add it to the list of other shit you’re not responsible for, beginning with the nogitsune’s actions and ending with whatever is in your head right now.” Derek leaned back in his chair and forced himself to relax his posture. “My mother was a lawyer. You knew that right?” Stiles looked stunned and confused by the sudden change in Derek’s demeanor as well as the subject, but he said nothing, so Derek continued. “She did a lot of pro-bono work for the victims of domestic violence. She told me that there was an almost universal belief, at least in the early days of her clients having left an abusive situation, that they were responsible for their own abuse. That if they had just been better partners, been more attentive, been better at thinking ahead, anticipating their partner’s needs… if they could have been or done any of those things that they wouldn’t have done whatever it was they considered themselves deserving of being punished for.” He stopped, pinched the bridge of his nose between two of his fingers and his thumb.

“Is there a point to this?” Stiles asked, but his voice was unsteady and soft.

“The thing about that kind of thinking, Mom said, is that it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The reason so many abuse victims go back to their abusers is because they convince themselves that one, they deserve the abuse they’re subjected to; and two, that they can’t do it on their own, there’s no way for them to make a life for themselves without the support of their abuser. She told me that the only way to escape the cycle is to change your mindset, and she said that it boiled down to making one decision: when there are only two options available to you, victim or casualty, which one do you choose to be?”

They sat in silence, only the hum of the refrigerator and the hum of rubber tyres on pavement as cyclists rode past the only sounds to break it.

“Are you a victim, Stiles? Is that how you’re going to define yourself for the rest of your life,” Derek asked in a low murmur, “or are you a casualty? Are you willing to do what it takes to accept that something awful, damaging, catastrophic and monumentally unfair happened to you, but pull yourself up from that and rebuild?” He reached across the table to take Stiles’ hand and hold it tightly. “Because if you choose the latter, you won’t be alone. You have your dad, you have Scott and Lydia, the rest of the pack. You-- you have me, if you need me. That’s what pack is, what pack  _ does.” _

Stiles just stared at him, silent, as Derek squeezed his hand once before releasing him and returning to his food. “Think on it, okay?” he said gently as he picked up his corn and gestured at Stiles’ plate with it. “I’m not going anywhere. Now eat. You need nourishment to heal.”

Stiles wordlessly picked up his fork and began to eat.

 

*

 

Derek didn’t see much of Stiles in the days after that, but it was hard to be disappointed about it when he drove past the café on Fourth St and saw Stiles and Scott sitting inside, talking over coffee, or when he came out of the bank diagonally opposite the sheriff’s station to see Stiles and his dad sitting on the bench beneath the tree outside of it eating lunch together, both of them looking lighter than they had in months.

But then Saturday arrived again, and Stiles was letting himself into the loft, settling in against Derek’s side in his customary spot, bogarting the remote.  _ “Spaceballs _ is on in twenty minutes,” he said, smelling of nerves and hope.

“I’m so excited I couldn’t hold my oil,” Derek quoted, making Stiles chuckle, the sound light and at ease.

“May the Schwartz be with you,” he responded gravely, then leaned into Derek and snuggled up close when Derek lifted an arm to drape around his shoulders.

They watched the end of the movie that was already playing, and it was during the credits that Stiles spoke again. “I don’t need you, I don’t think,” he said slowly, and it took a moment for Derek to parse that, but Stiles was still speaking, flooding the apartment with the scent of his nerves. “But… but I do want you. I think that’s an important distinction to make.” He paused, chewed absently on his thumbnail for a moment, deliberately not meeting Derek’s eyes. “I guess I just wanted you to know that.”

Derek knew Stiles didn’t mean it the way he wanted to hear, but he was still glad to hear it nonetheless. “Thank you for telling me,” Derek smiled, brushing the lightest of kisses over the top of Stiles’ head. “I’m proud of you, for what that’s worth.”

The movie began and Stiles stretched out on the couch so his head was in Derek’s lap. “It’s worth everything,” he said softly, briefly meeting Derek’s eyes before turning on his side to watch the movie.

 

*

 

Like everything else in his life, once Stiles decided on a course of action he devoted himself to it wholeheartedly. It began with him asking Derek-- nervously and with stilted hesitation-- if he knew of any therapists who specialised in the supernatural, and continued with him accepting Derek’s offer to pay for it.

“You’ll never get what you need from therapy if you spend every session worrying about how you or your dad are going to be able to afford it,” Derek told him, seeing the moment Stiles acknowledged the truth in the slump of his shoulders. “Let me do this for you,” he continued, smoothing his hand over the back of Stiles’ neck as he passed him in the kitchen. “Let me help you like this.”

In the weeks following that conversation Stiles seemed to make more of an effort to spend time with the pack, gradually returning to something close to the person he had been  _ before. _ He was quieter, more still and more reticent than he had been, but his tactility began to return, his humour began to reappear, and his smile began to show up again, small and wry little twists of his mouth that still made Derek’s heart flip a little when he was witness to them.

Before any of them knew it, though, it was the weekend before graduation and Stiles was once again curled against Derek’s side in the living room, Derek’s hand running absently through his hair as they watched  _ Viridiana _ together. Stiles sounded half-asleep when he spoke, so much so that it took Derek a beat to realise what he had said.

“Come to Washington with me.”

Confused, Derek peered down at Stiles, his eyes closed and long lashes fanned out over his cheekbones. “What?”

“When I leave for Washington. Come with me.”

“I can’t just… I can’t,” Derek said, but it sounded weak, and from the smile that curved Stiles’ lips he heard it too.

“Scott’s staying here to keep an eye on things, and Dad and Chris’ll be here too.”

“I-- why?” Derek asked confused. “You don’t need me anymore.”

Finally shifting to look up at him, Stiles’ face was serious but open. “No, I don’t,” he agreed. Pain lanced through Derek, swift and sharp, but then Stiles was speaking again, like an echo of the conversation they’d had weeks previously. “I don’t need you, but I do want you, and that’s healthier for both of us, really.”

“Stiles-”

Stiles’ face did something complicated, then he sat back and watched Derek steadily. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to say yes, okay? Do I want you to come with me? Of course I do, I wouldn’t have asked otherwise. But it’s not going to kill me if I just have to settle for seeing you whenever I come home for holidays.”

The next couple of years flashed through Derek’s head: Stiles leaving for college, only being able to take the time to fly home once, maybe a twice a year. Four years of that while he finished his engineering degree, then another however many years training with the FBI, and then what? Stiles could be posted anywhere, again only making it home when time permitted. Was that something Derek would be willing to settle for? What happened once the texts tapered off, the emails got shorter, the time found for Skype calls suddenly harder to come by? Would there be a point that Stiles would come home and be a stranger to Derek’s eyes?

Fingers tracing along his jaw to curl around the side of his neck drew Derek from his imagining, and he refocused on Stiles to find his eyes had widened and his expression concerned.

“Hey,” he said gently, “whatever you’re thinking, stop, okay? We’re good, me and you, no matter what happens.”

_ I’ll come with you, _ is what Derek meant to say, or maybe  _ I’ll follow you anywhere. _ But what came out of his mouth was something entirely different. “I want you too.”

There was a beat of utter stillness before Stiles’ heart did the audible equivalent of a stumble and began to beat faster, something hopeful twining through his scent before it disappeared abruptly, ruthlessly reigned in. He licked his lips, eyes flicking briefly down to where Derek’s hand had fallen to rest on his thigh and then back up again, swallowing hard. “That’s good,” he said. “Uh, does that… I mean, do you--”

“Yes,” Derek interrupted, suddenly realising without a shadow of a doubt just how strongly he felt for Stiles. “I want you, and I want to come to Washington with you.” The words were strong and probably overly-loud for the soft bubble of contentedness they had created for themselves, but the hope that lit Stiles’ eyes from within was worth it.

“You want me, huh?” he asked, a little teasing but mostly cautious.

“To be fair, you said it first,” Derek told him, making Stiles laugh, real and wonderful. “I’d really like to kiss you, if that’s okay?”

Stiles’ heartbeat went from a flutter to a gallop, and all the chemosignals that Derek received in response to his request made his head spin. Then Stiles’ lips were on his, the hand on his neck sliding down to splay flat behind his shoulder and they were kissing, Derek’s mouth opening against Stiles’ and their bodies somehow moving closer until Stiles was sitting across Derek’s lap, knees by his hips and hands pulling Derek closer. Always closer, until Derek sunk one hand into Stiles’ hair, the other grabbing his hip and shifted them so the weight of his body bore Stiles down onto the couch, and he delighted in the surprised laugh the move elicited.

They kissed languidly, touching as much skin as they could, hips rolling unhurriedly together for what felt like and could well have been hours, until they were panting against each other’s mouths and Derek finally worked a hand into Stiles’ sleep pants, gently working him until he came with a soft cry, back arched and head thrown back for Derek to lave with his tongue until he came, too.

With his forehead pressed to Stiles’ collarbone, Stiles’ fingertips running up and down his spine in a sensual caress, Derek couldn’t think of a single place he’d rather be.

“Just think,” Stiles murmured sleepily, as though echoing Derek’s thoughts, “with a place of our own we can do this whenever and wherever we want.”

His dick giving a valiant twitch at the thought, not at all helped by the huskiness to Stiles’ voice, Derek ran his teeth along Stiles’ collarbone before stretching up to kiss him again. “Maybe me coming with you is not such a great idea,” he sighed. “You’ll never get to class.”

The shiver that ran through Stiles at his words was a reward. “You’ll just have to restrain yourself, or use sex as a bargaining tool to get me to go.”

“But what if I can’t?” Derek asked, nuzzling behind Stiles’ ear, rumbling happily when Stiles turned his head to give him more room to do so. “Because I know I won’t want to.”

A breathless laugh gusted from him and Stiles turned back to Derek, catching his face between wide palms and kissing him deeply. “You’re going to be the best kind of terrible for me, aren’t you?” he complained, but Derek could tell exactly how happy the idea made him. Then Stiles frowned a little, smoothed his thumbs beneath Derek’s eyes and stared up at him, all pale face and dark eyes shining with the glow from the television. “Thank you,” he said eventually. “I don’t think I could have done this without you.”

“You would have,” Derek said, confident in the truth of his words. “It would have taken you longer, but you would’ve done it. You’re the best person I know.”

Stiles smiled at him, they kissed again, and Derek began planning for whatever was to come next.


End file.
